


speak first, regret later

by pistolgrip



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Love Potion/Spell, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:28:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22707730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pistolgrip/pseuds/pistolgrip
Summary: He expects taste-testing for Siero's plethora of mysterious potions to go wrong, he just didn't expecthow—and why is Six always there when he's making the greatest fool out of himself?
Relationships: Siete | Seofon/Six | Seox (Granblue Fantasy)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 86





	speak first, regret later

**Author's Note:**

> happy valentine's day!

This wasn't really Siete's idea of a good time, but it was a good way of killing time _,_ and Siero likes to take whatever leeway she can get in his wording to get him to do her favours. Please. As if he weren't unofficially bound for the rest of his life to do favours for her anyway.

Siero of twenty minutes ago needed a guinea pig for the mysterious potions that got mixed in with her shipments. She tested them for toxicity (which was always a great sign, that substances he was about to take first had to be tested for digestibility) and then she presented the ones that were _ninety-nine percent guaranteed not to cause harm_ _to_ _humans!_ She was always too happy about others taking risks in the name of science, he thought as she lined them up in front of Siete in small cups like shots, a collection of horrifying colours and pungent odours.

Twenty-seven years of his life without alcohol poisoning (and with normal poisoning) and he figured his liver had seen worse, up until he took the first one and felt his nose hairs burn off. (Maybe that's why he could carry on with his duty here. Instead of getting a palate cleanser, he no longer had any need for one by getting his his palate obliterated.) But, well, he's bored, and apparently he'd missed an assignment because some other Eternal picked it up. He commends whoever it was—it's nice to have a crew of go-getters—but he wonders if it's better than playing Suicidal Taste Tester for the world's worst chef, good ol' Anonymous.

He missed it by twenty-seven minutes, one minute for every year of his life, but he can feel his lifespan shortening by the second.

The second potion he tested was a truth serum— _It tastes exactly like one,_ he told her, and Siero asked, _Why do you have experience with truth serums?_ and Siete answered, _Would you believe me when I said this isn't the first time I've done something like this?_ The fifth turned him green for the duration of the next three potions, and the seventh made him burp uncontrollably between every ten words like a bad accent.

He groaned, and another burp interrupted his groan. "This is like my college years."

"You never had college years," Siero reminded him as if she were explaining an obvious truth to a child.

"Then this is"—he burps—"what I imagined college would be like. What's next?"

"There's only a few more. Hang in there!"

He glanced down at the next shotglass cum death vessel and finds it empty. Siero said that and _then_ had the gall to take out a small vial full of something bubbling, dark purple and viscous, and all hopes Siete had of that empty glass being a prank disappear.

This is where his life ended.

Well, no. This is where he wishes his life ended, because instead, the rest of his day happens.

He makes a face to complain, because if she somehow managed to convince herself that humans could ingest pure tar, he had to wonder whether she took one of these potions to impair her own judgement. But she opens the stopper, and he feels very suddenly calm. Pleasant. It looks like discharge from Satan's asshole, but it smells like a forest when a storm has passed after a long day, the fresh rain coaxing out life from between the cracks under the moonlight, and he knows that with a good enough reason, anyone would eat ass. Even Satan's.

"Now, only a little bit of this one. It doesn't look so good." She says that, and then she turns the vial completely perpendicular to the table so that its contents have nowhere to go but his glass. She pours the liquid into his Instant Death Receptacle, and calling it a liquid is a stretch (it certainly stretches) _._ It bubbles as it pours out like a waterfall in slow motion, with the consistency of oatmeal that was brought to life, given sentience, and proceeded to develop vengeance for being cursed with recognition of its own existence.

He holds the glass between his fingers, and his free hand comes up without thinking to pinch his nose. His subconscious is begging that hard to keep him alive, but so as long as he's conscious, he's going to commit to doing the stupid shit he promised. "And this won't"—he burps, goddamnit—"kill me, you say."

"Ninety-nine percent chance!"

He trusts Siero. He really does. But with this glass in his hands and the entire market taking a wide berth around the Knickknack Shack (something he's never seen before, much to Siero's chagrin during the rare times she has to close the shop for maintenance), he trusts death's determination to come for him in that one percent chance instead.

Still, he thinks with a sigh, if it smells that good, it can't be awful. He lets go of his nose to sniff it again, and the weird mix of calmness and anticipation washes over him. Maybe it'll just be like eating a candle; smells good, tastes awful, but everyone more or less has a good time because of it.

Thinking about it is going to kill him—actually, anything here could kill him, but thinking is the worst, because he'd be cognisant about dying before it happens. Dying without facing the bringer of his end has always been a fear of his, but he's already seen this awful thing in his hand. That's good enough—so he shakes the pesky thoughts away and chugs the liquid concoction in one gulp.

Well, he chugs as best he can. He practically has to deepthroat the glass to get the sludge out fast enough, and he feels like an animal sticking his tongue out and into it just to speed up the process. The texture is absolutely vile, made worse by the fact that he's taken such a small portion of it; it spreads unevenly instead of filling his mouth to suffocate him in one go.

The glass hitting the counter is the last thing he hears before his senses blow out. Static screams in his ears, his vision whites out like a snowstorm, and he thinks the stool underneath him collapses. Only the mocking laughter of gravity tells him that he's fallen from a position that looks normal to one that really isn't.

He hacks and coughs his way back to awareness, with a few burps in there from potion number seven just to take the piss on him, and he's a bit scared that he'll be lying in a puddle of his own piss like the natural meeting point of the three roads he's taken: deepthroating, college years he never had, and weird, coloured drinks from friends he trusts. His vision focuses inch by inch, and then all his senses attack him like pins and needles finding their mark, like they're jealous that he got his eyes back before everything else.

He comes to on the ground of the Knickknack Shack's booth, dragged behind the counter.

Two figures loom over him, and his eyes go to the unfamiliar one, because he doesn't know if he can look at Siero after what she did to him. He squints his eyes until they focus (because fuck you, other senses, he didn't get his vision back), but it's a mistake, because his vision sharpens so suddenly it might make him throw up. Throwing up might not be an awful choice, if not to rid his stomach of the contents of potions one to eight. He thinks, then, _What the hell is Six doing here, of all people?_ but he remembers—right. Siero _did_ say she had a mission picked up by an Eternal. The second thing he thinks is _It doesn't matter,_ because why would it when it means that _Six_ is _here,_ unmasked and baring his flustered face in all its glory?

It's still a novelty, even though Six is more comfortable around the rest of them with his half mask these days; he watches Six's face turn cherry red like his goddamn life depends on it, as he grabs his mask back from Siero's grabby hands.

"I am willing to _compromise,_ Sierokarte," Six says, the first thing that Siete's can hear in perfect clarity. It triggers the rest of his senses to hit him like a delivery ship after teasing him, but he's not optimistic that they're really back yet, because he keeps having false moments of revelation. The only true revelation he has is that he really, _really_ doesn't know anything.

He stumbles to his feet to find Ye Olde Trashcan to unload in.

He ejects potions one to eight, and it disturbs him that he can tell, mostly because it doesn't seem like his stomach acid could disintegrate them or whatever—it's not how it works, he knows, but it's _magic_. Magic's first and only rule is that it doesn't know how anything is supposed to work. It makes its own rules.

On top of the pile, the disturbing purple concoction coalesces. Bubbles wink up at him.

"Are you okay, Siete?" Siero actually sounds concerned.

Now that he's ejected most of it from his stomach, good riddance, he turns around to the two of them with a salute. "Yeah," he chirps. He can't even take one step forward before his legs collapse under the weight of being a colossal idiot. Six, being right in front of him, scrambles to catch him before he annihilates his handsome face on the counter where all the glasses are. "No," he rescinds, and then he _fucking_ _burps_. "Tomorrow, maybe, I'll finish. That last one was—bad."

"Get some rest, and in the time being, I'll track down what I can about that last potion," she reassures him, scratching her head. "Six, are you okay to take him to safety?"

"I have no choice, do I?" Sighing, he shifts so his arm is around Siete's waist and Siete's arm is around his shoulder. Siete notes that he is very, very warm, and his brain tells him that being warm is nice right now, so he tightens his grip around Six's waist. The rest of his body not touching Six feels a chill, like he's a man who's lived in Valtz Duchy all his life and then one day decides to move one island north and considering fifteen degrees is winter weather like a wimp.

The extra cuddling doesn't escape Six's notice, but Siete hopes the rest of his thoughts do, because—well, his thoughts scrambling around Six aren't new per se, but if one of those potions was a Thought Projection potion, then he's about to have to explain a whole lot more than just why he's trying desperately not to nuzzle into Six's neck or—no, _quiet_ , idiot.

With a groan, Six tacks on, "You owe me for this one." He leans down to glare at him, and Siete gives him a grin in return. Everything's fuzzy but Six's very cute face. He'll drink to that.

* * *

In all seriousness, though. For the most part, Siete feels great _._ He's burping less now, his toes might still be green if he checks, and he's banking on no one asking him anything of an extremely personal nature in case the truth serum decides to kick in again, because it seems like it's fading with the other potions. Really, other than the occasional feeling of being stabbed in every inch of his body (thanks, number four), he's in top shape!

"What on earth were you doing with Sierokarte today?" In comparison, Six is definitely not enjoying playing babysitter. Siete's little more than dead weight right now, which is odd. He knows his legs are working, but he wants to lean on Six, because if Siete feels good walking on his own, he feels _great_ staying in contact with Six. He's taking Six's good mood for himself, like a less sexy succubus.

What is he talking about? He would make a _hell_ of a sexy succubus! _That's_ the truth (serum)! "Six! Are you jealous that I wasn't spending time with you?"

"I watched you empty the contents of your stomach in excruciating detail. _Jealous_ is not the word I would use."

"What would you use, then? Impressed? Gobsmacked? Absolutely _in love_ with my incredible feat of self-created projectile weaponry—"

"Never refer to your own vomit as that ever again." Six groans—he groans a lot, and not the kind of groaning Siete wants to hear from him ( _shut up, truth serum, shut up_ ), sounding like he just wants to leave Siete where he'll fall and not have to deal with this. "That still doesn't answer my question. Although if that was the answer, I wouldn't like to know."

Siete could bite his tongue, but he's never been good at that. He was born with his foot in his mouth, baby! "I was doing her a favour because I was bored, and she had a bunch of potions laying around that needed identification."

"How many did you get through before you..." Six gestures the vaguest of vomiting actions with his free hand.

"Seven. Eight, if you wanna count the one that turned my stomach inside out. The first seven were pretty obvious, but the eighth was a complete disaster and we still have no guesses for it." Oh thank god, the truth serum's wearing off.

"Really?"

"No."

Alright, well, fuck him, then.

Look—Siete has a pretty solid theory by this point, but he's going to write every little irrational feeling down once he gets back to a pen and paper and hope that by the time he can get it to Siero, she'd have a cure for this awful revelation. But his fast and contradictory answer is enough to make Six freeze in place.

"What does it do," Six grits out with a sigh, not so much a question as it is a command to tell him immediately should Siete want to keep his internal organs (or what's left of them after they've had hell wreaked on them by potions). "Without baring for me the contents of your stomach once more, please."

He bites his tongue until it bleeds, because he almost says _No, but I want to bare something else for you_ , and he doesn't know if he means his dick or something _worse_ , something way more mortifying than whipping out his dick right here in semi-public. Siete considers delaying his answer until he can get his thoughts in order, but one of the potions might have been a Sheer Dumbassery potion (maybe the third one), because he decides that the best course of action is to loosen his hold around Six.

He kind of wants to cry when he lets him go, but he chokes down the consuming feeling to

say, "Allow me to demonstrate, my dearest." (Giving him that nickname has to be L'eau d'Umbassery, but at least Six should expect that of him.) "Let go of me and walk away until we're not touching anymore."

There's a beat of hesitation before Six complies. He proceeds with caution, and even though he was looking for any excuse to be rid of the dead weight Siete is, he still stays in physical contact with him until he no longer can.

Siete falls over, as one would expect. His head misses Six's boots, and with all of the breath stolen from his lungs, he turns until he's on his back, staring up into Six's face and his one visible eye. He squints. There's a halo around Six. Birds are chirping, the sun is shining, everything feels fresh.

"What the hell was that meant to prove?"

"Get it, Six? I've fallen for you." Siete burps, and _that_ makes every single potion coming back to haunt him for this confession.

* * *

In a way, Siero was right. Technically, none of the potions killed him. Blood is still flowing through his body ( _your dick_ , his mind tries to say, _you've got blood in there too, buddy, just show him that_ ). He still has air in his lungs, no matter how many clichés about it exist when meeting the true love. But she forgot about the potent hell that is _angsty teenager in unrequited love_ , which is another name for potion number eight, because it's what Siete feels when Six frowns down at him at his confession. He thinks it's just about time to wax poetic about the trials and tribulations of being in love with someone that doesn't love him back while he lays at their feet and bares his heart for all its worth.

"I don't get it," Six frowns. That's redundant. Six is always frowning with both his face and his mask whenever Siete is around. "Of course you have. You asked me to let go of you. If you weren't this baffling without questionable substances in you"— _I'd like one of your questionable substances in me, Six_ (shut the fuck up, please)—"I'd return you to Sierokarte right now. Regardless, it may be the best course of action. She might have a better idea of whether you have a concussion."

"You put a lot of faith in Siero," Siete says, but he's distracted with trying to find something that rhymes with _mask_ in his poem that he's dedicating to Six. "I know what the potion's done. I've told you already. I'm in love with you. I'm sure of it."

"That _is_ the problem." Six nudges his boot into Siete's head, not unkindly— _kiss it_ (are you out of your mind?). "Delusions are a problem. We're going back immediately."

He drags Siete up with a grunt (don't even say it) because Siete won't cooperate. He's practically boneless with Six's touch (do _not_ say it), and Six resorts to giving him a convoluted piggy-back ride where Siete is dragging his feet in the ground. He rests on Six's head between his ears, blowing puffs of air at their back and watching them twitch. "It's the farthest thing from a problem. For you, maybe. For me, I feel free. Check out my poem I wrote in my head— _Ears like a lightning rod and I am lightning, drawn to you—"_

"If I have to be subject to your amateur attempt at poetry, I'll make it a problem for _both of us_ ," Six growls, knocking his head back against Siete's forehead. Stars burst in Siete's vision. He's in love.

"'Love Hurts' is the name of that poem." Siete groans, and Six knocks him in the head again, lighter this time. Six is even warmer now.

It's a painful walk back to the Knickknack Shack, even though Siete doesn't do the walking for most of it. When he finally picks up his feet, he still stays in contact at all times because he'll die otherwise, and Six does an excellent job of grumbling the entire time when Siete writes some more fantastic poetry.

The Knickknack Shack is closed. Many firsts for the Knickknack Shack today, first with almost no traffic and now _closed_ , without the sign saying she'll be back after maintenance. The desperation burning in Six's eye gives Siete the impression that if he could, he would build a door to the free-standing shack just so he can knock on it before kicking it down.

Instead, Six pivots hard on his heel and stomps off. It's useless, because Siete's still holding his hand. (Six just kind of accepted that development, because it meant that Siete would walk instead of being dead weight.) Inspired by his haste, Siete starts, "My love is a ballerina on stage—"

"Please," Six says, and he sounds so tired that it shuts up every potion he's ingested and leaves behind only the restraint that Siete once had with his feelings for Six before this whole fiasco. "For five minutes, _please_ be quiet so we can find Sierokarte to stop your delusions."

"Why are you so convinced they're delusions?" Siete hiccups, and then he burps. Greenish smoke drifts out of the corner of his mouth—okay, not all of the potions shut up. "Is it so unbelievable that someone could be madly, extremely in love with you?"

Six scoffs, but doesn't answer.

"Six, you're a great guy. You've listened to my budding poet's soul and haven't left me to rot somewhere."

"You'd torture the wildlife, even if it would be an efficient way to run pest control for the base."

"No, stop." Siete grabs his shoulder, and Six turns around to stare at him. He's surprised at the uncertainty on Six's face that replaced the irritation, and his mind blanks before it _finally_ says something that's decent and not _take your dick out_.

_J_ _ust tell him you love him._

Okay, maybe not. "Don't—don't say that about yourself," Siete says, his voice softening. "Come on."

Six levels a glare at him. Something about it is turning inwards, instead of usual irritation he has toward Siete. "I've been thoroughly convinced. _Thank_ you, Siete. Your exaggerated claims from a mind-altering substance have changed my outlook on life." He says it with so much vitriol as he shrugs Siete's hand off his shoulder that Siete is frozen in place.

 _Hate to see you go, but love to watch you leave_ (can you please shut up?). All of the potions finally, for real this time, simmer down until he's just _Siete_ , a man that regrets.

He watches Six leave, and this time, he doesn't blame him. He also watches Six run right into Siero, holding a bunch of scrolls in her arms. "Just the people I was looking for!" she says, unaware of the awkward situation or perhaps uncaring. She takes Six's wrist and drags him back over to Siete to dump the scrolls in his hands, effectively trapping the both of them.

"Is it good news?" Siete says, trying to ignore that Six is looking anywhere but the two of them.

"Fantastic! Potion number eight does nothing horrific, despite what happened to you! It's a worse alcohol, where all the negative effects happen before all of the fun ones."

Siete blinks. Stares. Opens his mouth to form words. "So it lowers inhibitions."

"Exactly!" She takes all of the scrolls back from Siete's arms—was that for dramatic effect? She didn't even look at them?—and jogs back over to the Knickknack Shack without any further explanation, leaving the two of them standing and staring at each other.

Six's face is completely red, his face twisted with humiliation and anger and disbelief. Siete probably doesn't look any better, standing there gaping like an idiot.

He scratches at his cheek. The rest of the town walks around them, not paying either of them mind, and then Six turns on his heel and walks away. Siete follows, starting. "So—"

"Quiet—"

"No, listen—So I _did_ take a truth serum," Siete says. Six picks up his pace, his footprints kicking up dust as they jog out of the main town square. "That may have caused most of it. But everything I said _was_ true at the core, even if the presentation was a little... gaudy."

Six stops in his tracks, pivoting on his heel, and Siete nearly runs into him. "A _little_?"

"Hey, if the problem was the poetry, I could never do that again."

Six looks away. "Arguably, the worst part of that was the poetry. The lack of sense regarding word choice, as well as lyrical rhythm, was so disastrous you nearly turned it into an art." He still won't meet Siete's eyes, and his face is as red as potion number six (ha ha).

If Six is avoiding the conversation, then maybe he'll play along with it. He'll leave it be. "Well, poetry's not my strong suit. But listen—we can put that behind us, and you can forget that between the truth potion and the world's worst alcohol substitute that I fell in love with you somewhere along the way between the time we met and now." He raises his eyebrows and grimaces. Alright, not the best thing to say. "And that's the truth, but something I can ignore for the sake of our time with the Eternals."

Six's lips draw into a tight line, and then he turns and walks away without responding. Siete doesn't follow.

He deserves that. He shrugs and puts the smile back on his face, feeling the unwarranted confidence of the potions in his bloodstream fade away.

* * *

He doesn't see Six for the rest of the day, and when he wakes up the next morning he has a hangover, because _of course_ he would. The worst potion he drank wouldn't leave him without a present, would it?

He's fumbling around for a glass of water and finds none, and with only his headache throbbing and nothing else, he stumbles downstairs into the base's kitchen for a glass and some water and some reprieve. Instead, he finds Six, sitting at the kitchen table, frowning at the wall with his face in his hand, startling when Siete walks in.

Six directs his frown to Siete. It gets deeper. "Sit."

"Can I at least have some water first?" He croaks each word out, making a face at how he sounds. "Lest I continue croaking, like the potion that turned me green wants a frog, good sir, I beg of—"

"Get your water before I regret it."

His headache is screaming at him to shut up and get the water, so he gets his glass and sits in front of Six, who doesn't wait for Siete to make eye contact again before speaking.

"I've decided you're awful."

"Only just now?" Siete chirps as he puts the glass down. Not nearly enough. He feels like he needs to sit under the tap and just chug, but having a conversation with Six while gargling water would only set them back further. (Ah, maybe being set back further would be fine. These feelings are a pain, after all.)

He stands up to walk off to the sink, and Six breathes out, and somehow that sound is enough for Siete to believe that he knows Siete's about to do something absolutely idiotic, so he sits his ass right back down in the chair.

"I've known for a while."

"And my _greatest_ transgression is that I was dead weight to you yesterday and you had to carry me around like a big, sexy burlap sack?"

"It was that you determined you could fall in love with me."

Right, all right, straight to it. "I thought you didn't want to talk about it."

Has Six blinked at all this entire time? Six looks away and down at the ground, still frowning. His eyes are so close to being closed that it must be why his eyes aren't dry enough to force him to blink. "I do not."

"Sure! Whaddaya want for breakfast?"

"But I feel worse not addressing it," he mutters under his breath.

Thank god Siete's already out of it, because he's tired enough to say whatever he pleases. "Sure! Whaddaya wanna know about how I am madly in love with you?"

Six's unobscured eye darts up to squint at him again. "You're not lying."

"Everything's out of my system. Through both ends." Siete winks like the prospect of him shitting out the potion that turned him green wasn't the worst thing he'd ever had to witness with all of his senses at once. "Like I said yesterday—my love for you is like a pair of leg warmers."

Six stares, mouth hanging open.

"Fluffy, keeps me warm in the winter, and makes my legs look great."

Six shuts his mouth.

"It ended when I couldn't find anything to rhyme with _leg warmers_. But I had no inhibitions yesterday, and I still don't have them today, because I just woke up and I have a hangover the sequel, because _no_ booze makes you feel this bad. Everything hurts too much to think about bullshitting you, I think. My inhibitions are so bad that I'm writing poetry. I never have, but you kind of inspire it, and I felt creative."

"If that's the kind of poetry I inspire"—Six is looking away again, ignoring the main point—"I'd rather you not be in love with me at all. I don't understand why you'd subject anyone to that, least of all me."

"Because I—" _love you, fucking oops._ He clears his throat. "Really like you. And that sort of emotion is painful, so if I have to project that through my poetry, then so be it. It's sort of meta, in a way."

"You certainly make these feelings painful," Six grumbles.

Siete laughs, because yeah, his poetry's dogshit, and then—wait. "What?"

Six looks up at him. Like yesterday, the irritation's been replaced with uncertainty. "It is what it is." He stands up from his chair and tries to leave the kitchen, but thank _god_ Six decided to sit on the far end of the table to glare dramatically at Siete whenever he decided to walk in, because it means that Six has to walk past him to leave.

Siete grabs his wrist as he passes by, looking up at Six. His head is still pounding, but now his heart is, too, and that part of him that he couldn't quite disconnect from potion number eight whispers _oh, you'd like this angle for a different pounding, wouldn't you?_

(Fucking—maybe I _would_ , he snaps back, and that voice quiets.)

Words aren't great. They're just an extension of thinking. If he's going to die, then he doesn't want to think about it, to talk about it. So he tugs on Six's wrist, and Six follows—and in the early morning sun, their lips meet, and Six doesn't pull away.

(Until they take a moment to breathe, and Siete starts muttering _My love for you is like a coffee machine_ , at which point Six leans in to shut him up again, and Siete decides he's going to dedicate the rest of his life to writing increasingly awful pseudo-poetry just so Six can shut him up like this.)

**Author's Note:**

> took another old wip from 2018 and fixed it up because i still liked enough of it to expose it. some of you may recognize this, actually, sorry if you do  
> only 2012 bust friends remember when this narration style dominated everything i wrote. i miss writing like this but i guess it's a little bizarre now considering the other things i have uploaded


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